Are You Heading for a Nervous Breakdown?

Spot the signs before you crash and burn

Oprah can do pretty much anything she sets her mind to (it’s Oprah, after all!). But as it turns out, even she can get overwhelmed: In a recent interview with Access Hollywood, Oprah said she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown last October.

Considering that she juggles several projects around the world simultaneously, it’s easy to see why stress almost got the better of her. But you don’t have to have an Oprah-level to-do list to be on the verge of a breakdown. It’s totally normal to feel overwhelmed and wonder if you’re about two annoying texts from your mom away from completely losing control of your mental facilities. The good(ish) news? “Nervous breakdowns are rare, but being stressed out is a very common phenomenon,” says T. Byram Karasu, M.D., chair of the department of psychiatry and sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dealing with constant, overwhelming stressors—like working crazy hours with no downtime—is the most common cause of a breakdown, says Karasu. So how do you know if you’re just having a particularly stressful day—or if you’re about to have a nervous breakdown? Look out for these warning signs that a breakdown is on the horizon:

You Feel Anxious All the Time
When you’re about to have a breakdown, you’ll start to constantly worry that something bad is going to happen—although you may not be able to pinpoint exactly what’s making you nervous. “It’s not like depression or an anxiety disorder,” says Karasu. “It’s an unknown fear you feel coming that overwhelms you.” Even if several things in your life are going well—like you’re healthy overall and are in a promising new relationship—an unsteady feeling that you can’t shake could be a sign that you need to cope with some deep-seated stressors in your life sooner rather than later.

Your Behavior Changes… For the Worse
Everybody has a bad day, but if the littlest things have been bugging you lately, stress may be getting to you. Do you find yourself answering your co-workers’ questions with short one-word responses? Are you irrationally P.O.’d that your friend took 15 minutes to reply to your text when you two were mid-conversation? Has your sex drive completely vanished? These are all signs that your anxiety is starting to get serious. Even worse? Once people begin noticing these behaviors, they’ll probably start to distance themselves from you—which can stress you out even more, says Karasu.

You Can’t Think Straight
Having too much pent-up anxiety messes with your brain, which can make it difficult to focus on what you might normally find the simplest of tasks. So if you have to re-read a sentence five times to get the gist of it—or if co-workers have to repeat an assignment to you because the details have slipped your mind—it could be a sign that your stress is getting to a dangerously high level.

So what can you do if you’re experiencing one or more of the symptoms above? Karasu says you should take stress-prevention measures the moment you feel overwhelmed. Keep your phone out of sight and on silent (not vibrate) at work so that you can concentrate on one thing at a time. And although it may not seem like you have the time, make sure to get some exercise since it’s a great a way to conquer stress and clear your head. Finally, if you’re feeling swamped, start delegating whatever professional and personal tasks you can, suggests Karasu. Because the less (and more manageable) your workload, the less likely you’ll be to fall off the deep end.